Authorities arrested several terror suspects in Belgium, including the last known fugitive on the run after November’s deadly Paris attacks, multiple media outlets reported Friday.
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-By Lori Hinnant in Paris.
The prosecutor’s office said Friday it made “several arrests” but refused to provide more information.
The third man left the airport area immediately after the bombs exploded at 07:58, walking past the Sheraton hotel, Belgian police say.
It came a day after police issued new images and information tracing the movements of the mystery “man in the hat” after he fled Brussels Airport, as part of an appeal for witnesses. Broadcasters said he had also been caught on CCTV buying holdalls at a downtown mall that were later used in the Brussels bombings.
Authorities published the video on YouTube (in French) on Thursday, in which they illustrate the path the suspect took after fleeing the airport and display images and footage of where he was picked up by security cameras. The department said witnesses identified Abdeslam as the driver of a vehicle full of gunmen who killed patrons at Paris restaurants, and that authorities found his DNA on a discarded suicide belt and along with traces of explosives in a Brussels apartment.
The bombs of the two other suicide bombers went off at the airport but the third one apparently failed to detonate.
Khalid El Bakraoui, shortly before he carried out his attack. Three bombers, two at the airport and one in the subway, also died in the attacks, which wounded 270 people and were claimed by Islamic State extremists. A separate bombing took place in a Brussels metro station.
Along with a bombing at a downtown Brussels metro station, the March attacks killed 32 people.
Abrini has been on Europe’s most wanted list since being identified on CCTV video in a vehicle with Salah Abdeslam two days before the Paris attacks. Again, the suspect shows up on CCTV at 9.42am – nearly two hours after the airport attack.
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He is being held in a high-security prison in the northern Belgian city of Bruges and must still be questioned in “the case concerning Forest where shots were fired on police officers”, Mary told reporters outside a Brussels courthouse.
